es once formed of them, partly
because it suffers from fever after the rains. I went to it because from
it one visits the famous ruins at Zimbabwye, the most curious relic of
prehistoric antiquity yet discovered in tropical Africa. The journey,
one hundred miles from Iron Mine Hill to Victoria, is not an easy one,
for there are no stores on the way where either provisions or
night-quarters can be had, and the track is a bad one, being very little
used. The country is well wooded and often pretty, with fantastic, rocky
hills rising here and there, but presenting few striking features. Two
views, however, dwell in my recollection as characteristic of South
Africa. We had slept in a rude hut on the banks of the Shashi River,
immediately beneath a rocky kopje, and rose next morning before dawn to
continue the journey. Huge rocks piled wildly upon one another towered
above the little meadow--rocks covered with lichens of brilliant hues,
red, green, and yellow, and glowing under the rays of the level sun.
Glossy-leaved bushes nestled in the crevices and covered the mouths of
the dens to which the leopards had retired from their nocturnal prowls.
One tree stood out against the clear blue on the top of the highest
rock. Cliff-swallows darted and twittered about the hollows, while high
overhead, in the still morning air, two pairs of large hawks sailed in
wide circles round and round the summit of the hill. A few miles farther
the track crossed a height from which one could gaze for thirty miles in
every direction over a gently rolling country covered with wood, but
with broad stretches of pasture interposed, whose grass, bleached to a
light yellow, made one think it a mass of cornfields whitening to
harvest. Out of these woods and fields rose at intervals what seemed the
towers and spires of cities set upon hills. We could have fancied
ourselves in central Italy, surveying from some eminence like Monte
Amiata the ancient towns of Tuscany and Umbria rising on their rocky
heights out of chestnut woods and fields of ripening corn. But the city
towers were only piles of grey rock, and over the wide horizon there was
not a sign of human life--only the silence and loneliness of an
untouched wilderness.

From Fort Victoria, where the war of 1893 began by a raid of the young
Matabili warriors upon the Mashona tribes, who were living under the
protection of the Company, it is seventeen miles to Zimbabwye. The track
leads through a prett